Fine, I'll do it myself.
On 4 March 2018 El Salvador, as the title suggests, held an election for their Legislative Assembly of 84 seats (and also 262 mayors, but I haven't found results for those yet). Per Wikipedia, they are "elected by open list proportional representation from 14 multi-member constituencies based on the departments, with seats allocated using the largest remainder method." How fair is the process? Worse than Costa Rica but better than their other neighbors, judging by the Freedom House rankings.
I'm not even going to try to summarize the long, sordid, and often bloody history of El Salvador. Hopefully Hashemite will be along to do that with his usual buckets of sarcastic vitriol.
Suffice it to say things were horrible a lot. You know, the non-Costa Rican usual state of affairs.
Who are these parties?
Nationalist Republican Alliance = ARENA, i.e. bloody-handed, right-wing, elitist, and dominant. Offshoot of the National Coalition Party back in 1981, created to fight the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, which they did with great glee and some success. Killed lots and lots of people, including Christian Democratic Party supporters. But clearly they've got some real and significant support, because they've actually won most of the elections held fairly and freely. My guess is it's because they're the de facto "anti-FMLN" party. Back in the day heavily tied to the right-wing elements of the El Salvadoran military, which they might well still be, it's just that a lot of the military got tired of trying to run the country and let the civilians do it while they went off and got rich through their influence in the economy.
Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front = FMLN, i.e., also murderous but not as much as ARENA (much less so than ARENA, in fact, if not as pure as their supporters like to claim), left-wing, students leading peasants type of thing (the typical leftist movement in many ways), and clearly the main opposition to ARENA both militarily and later politically. Of course, they also fought and killed Christian Democratic Party supporters during the Civil War, although that depended on which FMLN faction you're talking about - there were abortive attempts at unifying the moderate center early in the war and early after the war, but violent distrust in the beginning and high polarization after the war ended that. They've also got some real and significant support, but not as much as ARENA. Kind of explains how El Salvador negotiated its way to ending its civil war - the FMLN couldn't win, but ARENA couldn't crush them either.
Grand Alliance for National Unity = GANA, i.e., the, err, ARENA splinter that is conservative but votes with the FMLN...or something...I'm not really sure what's up with them. Something about being more corrupt than normal and cutting a deal with the FMLN? Expert needed!
National Coalition Party = PCN, i.e., the nationalistic military party of the 1960s and 1970s which was overthrown but managed to somehow survive separately from ARENA. According to the election information they've allied with both ARENA and the Christian Democrats in different places...how DO they survive, anyway? The less economically conservative side of the El Salvadoran right? Something else? Another of those expert needed cases.
Christian Democratic Party = PDC, i.e., traditionally the opponents of the PCN and to their left (but not being over in socialist/communist territory). Suffered a lot for it. Tried to run things following the 1979 overthrow of the PCN but was targeted by both ARENA and the FMLN (but mostly ARENA, which was better-armed and well-organized at the whole killing thing) which made things rather trying for them, as you might expect. Lost power - in elections, shockingly enough - to ARENA back in 1989, who ended up eventually ending the war through negotiations, which was not where the smart money was back then.
Allied with the moderates of the FMLN (now known as Democratic Change and yes this is oversimplifying things) but all of them got squeezed out by increasing polarization between ARENA and FMLN. Still around, somehow, but have fallen far.
Salvadoran Patriotic Brotherhood, i.e., a new party I know nothing about. Still got more votes than
Democratic Change = CD, i.e., the remnants of the center-left. How far they've fallen.
Social Democratic Party = PSD, i.e., another center-left remnant, splinter of the PSD, as if the center isn't weak enough already.
The previous election was in 2015, and the result was a FMLN-GANA coalition. How did it govern? Well, let's look at 2018.
Party Votes % Seats +/– |
Nationalist Republican Alliance 823,198 42.34 37 +5 |
Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front 475,265 24.44 23 –8 |
Grand Alliance for National Unity 222,548 11.45 11 0 |
National Coalition Party 209,576 10.78 8 +4 |
Christian Democratic Party 61,604 3.17 3 +2 |
ARENA–PCN 24,325 1.25 0 – |
FMLN–CD 22,899 1.18 0 – |
PDC–PCN 20,808 1.07 0 – |
Salvadoran Patriotic Brotherhood 18,062 0.93 0 New |
Democratic Change 17,503 0.90 1 +1 |
Social Democratic Party 13,717 0.71 0 0 |
FMLN–PSD 11,123 0.57 0 – |
FMLN–PSD–CD 10,716 0.55 0 – |
Independents 12,998 0.67 1 +1 |
Invalid/blank votes 178,538 – – – |
Total 84 0 |
The FMLN was the clear loser of this election. They seemed to bleed voters all over the place. From an Economist article out there - the only analysis I could find in English - they lost a LOT of votes to the "Invalid/blank" option, because a popular ex-FMLN politician who broke with the FMLN over their corruption issues encouraged his supporters to do that. And a lot of voters stayed home.
ARENA claimed victory and while they certainly did a lot better than the FMLN, their total votes went down as well. It seems more like the FMLN lost than that ARENA won.
The PCN doubled its seats and if they don't end up in coalition with ARENA I'll be shocked.
GANA held steady. Who knows what they'll do?
The PDC rose a bit from the grave. But will it matter?
CD and PSD? Why are they even around?
There is also an independent I know nothing about.
And with this, hopefully experts can fill in all the information gaps I have about this election.